High Density Population Adds To The Woes Of Pollution In Delhi Slums During Winter

It is a grey November afternoon. Sudha Kumari is sitting on her haunches needling drawstrings into pants, perched right outside her one-room home at the end of a steep flight of stairs, in Delhi바카라�s Sanjay Colony.

Inside, her husband sleeps on the only cot in the room lit with a solitary bulb. Her two children sit crouched on the floor. Beside her is her mother-in-law. The blue wall is lined with shelves full of steel utensils on one side and clothes on the other.

바카라�The sky gets dusty and dull as soon as winters arrive. There바카라�s so much dhuan (smoke) in the air. There is haze and no sunlight,바카라� she says.

At the mention of pollution, she looks back at her husband quizzically and turns back to say, 바카라�Yahan nahi hota itna (that doesn바카라�t happen much here),바카라� ironically, while breathing in air classified 바카라�unhealthy바카라�.

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Sanjay Colony is located in the Okhla industrial estate that houses several factory units including of ready-made garment exporters, as well as other industries like pharmaceutical manufacturing, plastic and packaging.

The waste from these factories find their way into residential clusters like Sanjay Colony, as is evident from the drains overflowing with garbage. Being a hub of cloth manufacturing, everything, from sorting of leftover fabric to creating new garments, happens in these dingy lanes, where throughout the year, the air is rife with dust particles. In winters, pollution aggravates the air quality in the congested colony.

바카라�Here, pollution comes from industries in the form of effluents in the canal that runs next to the colony. Over time, residents have become used to it. People are not even aware of what they are breathing in,바카라� says Muzamil Yaqoob, who is one of the researchers working on a project at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi to understand the disproportionate impact of pollution on different social groups.

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바카라�An objective of our Social-AQI project was to strike a conversation with people about the kind of pollution they are living in, because air pollution is disproportionately dispersed,바카라� he adds.

A few maze-like lanes바카라�barely wide for a single person to traverse at a time바카라�away from Sudha바카라�s home, is Ramesh Chand바카라�s two-storey residence-cum-workshop. He works out of the ground floor, and lives with his wife on the first. The ground floor is stuffed with huge sacks of tiny bits of fabric. On one of them sits Chand and his wife.

Chand was diagnosed with asthma a few years back, around the time pollution in Delhi first started breaching the calibration limits of monitoring instruments. During the winter of 2018, he started coughing and it refused to subside, prompting his son to seek medical help.

바카라�I have chest pain and difficulty in breathing. I start coughing no sooner than it gets cold and pollution rises. It바카라�s been two years since my treatment began at VIMHANS Hospital, through my son바카라�s ESI card.

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바카라�I바카라�ve been taking medicines, and have been advised to wear a mask when I step out, but the polluted air is everywhere, and our work also involves spending a lot of time around dust. I바카라�ve tried to reduce that,바카라� he says.

Muzamil points out that according to their data, collected using hyper-local sensors, the air quality in Sanjay Colony was abysmal around Diwali, when AQI had reached 450.

The great divide Harinder Singh and family sitting around an air purifier in their Defence Colony home (top); Nirmala Devi in her Anand Vihar home

In Anand Vihar, one of the most polluted areas in the capital, Nirmala Devi wakes up to the view of a drab grey wall encasing a factory premise. She lives in a makeshift jhuggi next to the main road.

The air is hazy enough to impair visibility to a few hundred metres. She emerges from her home, masking her face with the end of her sari to stifle a cough. The distinctive smell of the industrial area is impossible to miss, but Nirmala doesn바카라�t seem to bother.

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Only a few weeks back, she says, she had gone to a nearby clinic after she faced difficulty in breathing. She spent Rs 200 getting an 바카라�ultrasound바카라� and buying 15-days worth of medicine.

바카라�I run out of breath so frequently that I can바카라�t even scold my children (she has three boys). There are days when I wake up in the middle of the night, gasping for air,바카라� she says. But much like Sudha, she couldn바카라�t place the role of pollution in her life.

In the first week of December, Anand Vihar recorded a 바카라�poor바카라� AQI of 194. According to a study by Centre of Science and Environment, the area has consistently been among the most polluted in the city, owing to its proximity to several sources바카라�including industrial emissions, traffic and waste burning. Its proximity to the Ghazipur landfill also impacts the air quality.

바카라�The decomposition of waste in the landfill results in emission of toxic gases like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen sulphide, and because there is heavy traffic in the area, a lot of settled dust particles come into the breathing zone,바카라� explains Ashish Jain, director of Indian Pollution Control Association, an NGO that works towards a sustainable environment.

The smog creeps into the houses of Sudha, Nirmala, Ramesh Chand and many other residents of slums across Delhi, without them realising the quality of air they are breathing, and the long-term effect it is having on their lives.

While the coughing, chest pain, burning of eyes and itching of throats does cause discomfort바카라�AQI, PM (particulate matter) and air purifiers are not terms they are familiar with, unlike businessman Harinder Singh, who lives in posh Defence Colony.

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When it rained last week, his first thought, Singh says, was that the AQI would fall. 바카라�For many years, the first thing I do after waking up is to take in the sunlight. But now, days are dull and grey, and it puts me off,바카라� he says, sitting in his spacious living room that boasts of a gorgeous green view of his garden.

The tastefully done space houses paintings by artists Arpana Caur and Purushottam Singh and gifts by writer Khushwant Singh and film director Imtiaz Ali.

Calling himself a 바카라�Delhi man바카라�, Singh, the founder of clothing brand 바카라�1469바카라�, admits he is more optimistic than many of his friends, who have left the city over the last few years due to the worsening air quality, and holds out hope for rainy and sunny days. But he still takes his family out of Delhi every now and then, to 바카라�get a dose of fresh air바카라�. 바카라�We keep going to Chandigarh, stay there for a week to recharge our lungs,바카라� he says.

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While Singh says he does not have much faith in electronic devices like air purifiers to mitigate pollution, he bought one worth Rs 28,000 a few years back, after his wife put her foot down. 바카라�I don바카라�t know how effective they are, but back then, like any parent, I was very worried about my children. My youngest suffers from asthma and wheezes a lot, so we put one in her room,바카라� says Kirandeep Kaur. The couple have two more kids.

Just the mention of pollution leaves Avneet Marwah, the CEO of Super Plastronics Private Limited, exasperated. The entrepreneur, who lives in south Delhi바카라�s Greater Kailash, says he is so anxious and paranoid about pollution that he has six air purifiers at home, one in his car and several others in his workplace in Noida.

바카라�Pollution used to be unimportant as a conversation topic half a decade ago, but now it has reached the next level. The repercussions will be felt 7-8 years later, especially by the children. The youth will be affected the most.

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바카라�Air purifiers are always running when my children are around. Our car windows are always rolled up, and we hardly take the kids out,바카라� says an anxious Marwah, who has two boys, one aged four years, the other five months.

In fact, he considered moving out of Delhi four years back due to the worsening quality of air. 바카라�I was staying in Bangalore for 10-15 days every month to stay away from the pollution. I might still consider moving out. I know at least a dozen people who have. I바카라�ve started having health problems myself. I have sinus, which aggravated after November 5 this year,바카라� he says.

While Sudha, Ramesh and Nirmala, Harinder and Avneet might be living in the same city with similar levels of polluted air, their stories bring to light the question, 바카라�Is pollution really the social leveller we make it out to be?바카라�

Ravi Agarwal, founder-director of the environmental non-profit Toxics Link, doesn바카라�t think so. For him, pollution, like the Covid-19 pandemic, is a 바카라�marker of social hierarchy바카라�.

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바카라�We need to be conscious that while we all face pollution, there are people who can buy air purifiers, while others can바카라�t. We don바카라�t realise it바카라�s the poor that get most affected. If you are in a car, you can roll up the windows and switch on the AC. But most of these poor people either walk or bicycle to work,바카라� he says.

Agarwal emphasises the need to look at air pollution from the perspective of the most impacted. 바카라�Besides science, we also have to take into account the impact of pollution and its contributors. In case of climate change, we tell developed countries, 바카라�you are producing, why should we pay?바카라� The logic applies to air pollution too: 바카라�I바카라�m not producing it, but I바카라�m suffering more than you바카라�. That lens is very important,바카라� Agarwal says.

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The distinction in the way pollution affects different social groups is also evident in the housing structure. Pollution levels in Sudha and Nirmala바카라�s densely populated neighbourhoods will be a lot higher than Avneet and Harinder바카라�s spacious localities, points out Jain.

바카라�Any area that is densely populated and has more human activity will be more polluted. The CO2 emissions will be higher, and more movement will result in dispersal of more dust particles, which will emerge as pollutants and come into the breathing zone,바카라� he says.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Upstairs-Downstairs in the Smoking Zone")